Glenroy Sinclair and Nagra Plunkett, Staff Reporters

ACP Keith 'Trinity' Gardner and members of the St. James Police High Command tour Norwood, St. James following a flare-up of violence during which five persons were murdered last month. - Photos by Monique Hepburn

WESTERN BUREAU:

Despite the legal, intelligence and operational support now being provided by Operation Kingfish to stop the bloodletting in St. James, the parish's homicide rate continues to climb.

The constituency of North West St. James continues to be the crime hotbed of the parish, and accounted for yet another multiple killing in Salt Spring on Sunday night. The police said two more persons, 42-year-old shopkeeper Romel Reid and Errol 'Tuku' Dixon, a 36-year-old taxi driver, both of Buck Toe Lane in the community, are the latest victims.

On November 4, a couple was killed at their home on Humber Avenue, Montego Bay and a week later three men were murdered by gunmen in the Salt Spring community, about 10 miles away.

The bloodletting continued on November 27 in Rose Heights, where six men were shot, four fatally, by gunmen who went on a shooting spree in that part of the community. According to police reports, at least 34 persons have been killed in the parish since last month.

Violence-prone communities

The constituency, which accounts for 70 per cent of the parish's 172 killings since January, is home to the violence-prone communities of Norwood, Salt Spring, Glendevon and Flanker.

"There are a myriad of factors that contribute to the difficulty in policing these areas; poor road conditions, the question of mobility, getting information out of these communities, and lighting at times," Deputy Superintendent Rudolph Taylor, operations officer for St. James, said at a Gleaner's Editors' Forum in Montego Bay last Thursday.

Head of Operation Kingfish, Assistant Commissioner Glenmore Hinds, said that although his team has not yet set up an office in the parish, they have begun doing some work in the troubled communities.

Mr. Hinds told The Gleaner that his team of detectives has been assessing the situation while providing support for the St. James police whose major challenge at the moment is a lack of service vehicles and human resources.

It was disclosed that a single patrol car, which is assigned to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB), is being used by at least 50 detectives across the parish.

This revelation by the St. James police comes three weeks after Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas disclosed that the police force was still short of some of the basic items necessary to fight crime.

Commissioner Thomas stressed that at the top of his wish list was the need for greater mobility, and that manpower development was urgently required.